


The Last Before

by sylvermists



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: F/F, anyway this is kinda fluff kinda not, but there are some sweet moments in there so it's all good, hello why does their relationship not have a ready tag, i will personally fill it if that's what it takes i'd die for these two, juno steel universe, spoiler they Die at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 21:11:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15300126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvermists/pseuds/sylvermists
Summary: Buddy and Vespa have finally been reunited, but the world has become a colder, crueler place for two old legends who flew too close to the sun.





	The Last Before

**Author's Note:**

> the "//" means an indented, italicized paragraph because ao3 hates me and the way i write memories

“And if you’re wrong?”

“If I’m wrong,” Vespa reaches down, and intertwines their fingers. “You and I will have ourselves one hell of a funeral pyre.”

“And if we burn,” Buddy echoes her lover’s words from so many lifetimes ago. “At least we burn together.”

/When we burned,/ neither of them say. /We burned alone./

The cruel light of the martian sun has already stolen their present, and most of what should have been their future. Buddy will be damned if she’ll let it have their past too.

//They don’t leave the mansion until the early hours of the morning, long after they’ve managed to successfully relieve the Kanagawas of a healthy portion of their family fortune. It’s not every day that a pair of small-time crooks get the chance to attend a fancy cocktail party after all, and once Vespa realized that Buddy had never tried champagne, well, it was a lost cause. Not that either of them are complaining, as they stagger home through the underbelly of Hyperion City, leaning heavily on each other, the kind of wild laughter that they can only ever seem to find in each other’s presence bubbling in both of their chests. And despite the truly impressive amount of heavy jewels crammed into every opening of her dress coat, there’s a lightness in Buddy’s chest. She can’t place it at first, but then she says something, and Vespa stops and turns towards her, the light of a flickering Oldtown streetlight reflected in her half-crazed eyes. For a moment, neither of them speak. Then Vespa smiles, wider than Buddy even thought possible, and she knows exactly why.//

“I can’t believe you still remember that much of it,” Vespa mumbles, half-asleep, her head resting against Buddy’s shoulder.

“I remember everything, darling,” there’s a sting in Buddy’s chest as she realizes that she hasn’t seen Vespa smile like that in a long time, and that she might never get too again.

“Liar.”

“Alright,” Buddy laughs quietly, and lifts her hand to toy with a luminous green curl that’s come loose from Vespa’s ponytail. “But I remember that. I remember when I realized.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft on me, Aurinko.”

“I’ve been told it’s one of the side effects of getting old.”

/And I know that it’s one of the side effects of losing you./

She doesn’t say it out loud. But Buddy should have known better than to think that she could ever keep anything a secret from Vespa.

Really, she should have.

//The rain smatters against the uneven asphalt of the road, and Buddy wraps her arms tighter around herself, struggling to make out the building ahead through the wall of water. She casts another glance over her shoulder, just to make sure that no one’s following her, even though she knows that it’s not necessary. Even if there was someone else crazy enough to go out in this weather, why would they come here, to the ruins of an abandoned building on the outskirts of the most rundown city in the Outer Rim? Really, why would anyone? But Buddy has business here. Or she used to, at least, way back when. And there are answers that you can only find by retracing your steps, and finding your way back to where everything began. And that’s a journey that you can only make alone. No one can know that she’s here. Not even Vespa.//

“But you knew,” Buddy whispers, breaking it off there because they both know what happens next. “You always knew. And you were always there.”

/Until you weren’t./

Vespa hears that too. She doesn’t answer, but her grip on Buddy’s hand tightens. There are years of memories, half a decade of moments they never got to share, and an eternity of apologies contained within that one touch, and it sends a shiver down Buddy’s spine. Because there’s a goodbye in there too, and one final apology glittering in Vespa’s eyes as their gazes meet.

“It’s done, then?”

Buddy’s voice is steady. A part of her hates herself for that, hates that she’s already given up, hates that there’s not enough fight left in her to demand another ending. But then again, what other ending could there be for them?

Vespa says nothing.

“How long?”

“An hour. Two, if we’re lucky.”

Luck was a thing they always had too much of back then, and never realized until they’d used it all up.

//“Has it been done before?”  
“Not by us.”  
“It’ll be more dangerous than anything we’ve ever done before.”  
“You always were good at sweet talk.”//

“And then you said that if something went wrong, we’d meet back at the lighthouse.”

“And then you did.”

There’s a tremor in the ground beneath them, and Vespa doesn’t say anything else, only presses closer to Buddy. The last rays of the dying sun catch in the tears that glisten against her cheeks, and Buddy realizes that this is the last Martian sunset they’ll ever witness.

Thinking of any of the other lasts that await the two of them would break whatsever left of her heart, so that’s the one Buddy chooses to focus on. After all, it’s the only one that she won’t miss.

//The sun disappears completely beneath the horizon, and Vespa isn’t there. But Buddy is, and she remains there, staring out into the night until the first rays of morning appear out across the desert. Vespa isn’t there. And she isn’t there the next night either, or the night after that. The sheer magnitude of the number of nights that she could continue to not be there is a forbidden thought, but Buddy thinks it anyway, every night. And still she waits. And still the sun sets.//

“There never was a way out of here in time, was there?” Buddy doesn’t know that it’s true until she says it out loud.

Or, no. She’s known that for a while. She just hadn’t allowed herself to admit it to herself.

Vespa smiles, and somewhere behind her haunted eyes and gaunt features, Buddy catches a glimpse of the reflected light of a failing streetlight. And she realizes what Vespa’s known all along, ever since that final, fatal heist all those years ago. That the two of them have been living on borrowed time for longer than either of them ever realized. And that once that time runs out, the only choice you’re left with is how you use the last grains left in your hourglass.

In this end, at least, they burn together.

And maybe, maybe, there’s the light of a wholly different lighthouse waiting there, on the other side of whatever comes next. One that has been waiting for a very long time to lead the two of them home.


End file.
